A piece of novel optical storage material-PPV/SiO

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sol-gel material has been produced in the following steps:(1)PPV precursor has been synthesized by Wessling method;(2)PPV/SiO

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sol-gel complex material has been prepared by mixing silicon sol and PPV precursor and then through the process of gelation

vaporization and heating;and(3)the material has been doped with the polymer(methyl methacrylate)to improve its characteristics.STM

UV and FT-IR have been used to analyze the physical properties of the composite material.The STM photography of SiO

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sol-gel shows porous structure with size of about 100nm.The UV and FT-IR absorption spectra show that PPV has been produced in the complex system after the heating process.In the two-beam coupling experiment

asymmetric energy transfer has been observed.While the material was irradiated by two laser beams of equal intensity

one beam increased and the other decreased at the same time and then got to saturation.A photorefraction-like mode has been used to explain the phenomena.The dependence of absorption and diffraction efficiency on PPV concentration has also been investigated.The results indicate that both of them increase with concentration with PPV.The absorption and diffraction efficiency are also influenced by doping or un-doping PMMA.